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25 February, 2015

I feel like to appropriately tell this story I have to start with a preface.

Midland isn't like anything you could imagine. It is an oil town, and up until recently it was a small town. However with advances in technology, oil companies saw $$$ out here, and people began to migrate here for jobs because it's a very high paying industry. There's no way that this town could accommodate to the growing population in a timely manner, and subsequently there were a lot of economic woes to follow because of overcrowding. Unfortunately, because no one wants to (can afford to) live here unless they're in the oil industry, other industries suffer. For example, I had a broken stove for over a month because the property management where I live can't find maintenance workers. No one cares. Want to go out to eat? Be prepared to endure a long wait (2 hours on a weekend), and also be prepared for sub par customer service. No one cares. In a rush at the grocery store? Don't be, because there are only 3 (stores) and 150,000 people who are also in a hurry, and we're all just going to have to wait. The icing on the shit cake is that it's really ugly and boring here. The land is just flat dirt, there's no real grass, no trees, just mesquite bushes, the water smells like rotten eggs, and the air smells like hydrogen sulfide. It's boring because no one wants to be here long (we're all here to make a quick buck, and then go) so people don't really invest in starting new businesses. There are movie theaters, a bowling alley, and a mall that literally has a ROSS in it (LOL).

I think I've painted a good enough picture. It's the ugly step child of Texas. This isn't a post about how much I hate where I live. I've been here for 7 months, and it took me 6 of them to stop being angry that I ended up here. Everyone that knows me has told me to just shut the fuck up or move at some point during the last 6 months, and I've thought about it, (moving, not shutting the fuck up.) In October I came really close to enrolling in grad school, just for a reason to leave. I spent a lot of sleepless nites thinking about how much I missed my old home, and how I'd give up the money and opportunity to just go back to living somewhere that made me happy, because isn't that what life is all about? But there was a nagging question in the back of my mind; what kind of example would I be setting for my daughter if I quit something just because it was hard?

Life isn't just about being happy. I've learned this through years of depression. Life is about cycles; good and bad, and lessons, and endurance, and seriously, someone just life hire me as a life coach already.

When I started thinking about what I could learn in my time here, I felt a shift and I wasn't angry anymore. I'm trying to learn patience, most of all, but I'm also realizing that all situations come with advantages and disadvantages, and someday I'm going to miss right now, regardless of how hard it feels right now. I'm learning to appreciate things for what they are. (Despite my 3am twitter rants about waking up to the smell of hydrogen sulfide!)

I watched this video the other day and it was a much needed reminder that we have the ability to make a choice about how we react to life. I wanted to post it here, because I know we all reach a point in life when things get tough, and we forget what is important.

Happy Wednesday, friends. Today I'm choosing to be happy. I hope you will too. :)

3 comments:

Holy shit, have you been inside my brain lately? Because I've been thinking big time about the cyclic nature of life, embracing the stuff that's hard on us or pushes us into positions we'd rather not be, and how freeing it can be to decide to embrace all of it–the stuff that makes us happy and the stuff we wish we could avoid. Like acid rain.